Randy Pitchford Quotes

You can't just come up with an idea for a game and stick the drama on top. It all has to be one driving thrust.

I don't know how video game narrative works.

The thing about games is, players often say they don't care about story, but then if you took the story out, what would their reaction be? If no one cared about story, we'd all still be playing Pac-Man. There's nothing wrong with Pac-Man, but the point is, there's a genre of games in which you want to become part of that world.

What I'm doing is creating a game. I'm not making a movie. To make the game more enjoyable and captivating, and to make the player feel like he's present in that setting, we need the cinematic element.

I am a big gamer. I am kind of in the beginning stages of creating a graphic novel entity that would encompass a game and a movie. I would die happy if I could be a voice in a game that I would actually play and create easter eggs with the team. That's my dream.

Only in about 2007 or so did it become clear to me that games could stand proudly beside other storytelling mediums, and that's when I became more, shall we say, evangelistic in my position. Prior to that, I don't know how enthusiastically I would have admitted that I game.

I would say I'm a storyteller first, but game making is very wrapped up in how I think of story. If I were to have a story idea, and I decided to write a novel with it instead, I'd have to very consciously de-couple it from gamedom - for example, deliberately add in things that could not be represented in a game scene.

I talk periodically with the producers at EA and I try to be as honest as possible because as great as EA does, you just don't want to hear good things. These people are really passionate about making games and making them as realistic as possible.

Games are getting more interesting. I mean, when we talk about books, they can be anything from a summer blockbuster to 'War and Peace' - well, games are the same. I think the creative side is catching up with the technology.

The video game market is huge, and the ability to tell stories, and tell different kinds of stories in the gaming space is quickly evolving and changing for the better.

The average action game doesn't much traffic in thematic grandiosity, but the BioShock games are different.

There's a misunderstanding that I've always tried to address straight on when this question comes up, which is that a 'Half-Life' story can somehow exist outside of a game. It can't. The story is created through the process of trying to figure out how to best use the features of the engine within the interesting set of constraints it poses.

One of the turning points in the look of the Guardian is when we decided Logan Thackeray would be a Guardian as opposed to a Warrior. Logan's own protective nature and the fact that the humans have been knocked back into defensive positions informed a lot of what the Guardian became.

Creating the fictional background for a game world isn't significantly different from creating a background for fiction.

It's weird that, in a way, by writing about video games, I get to develop them, too.

Who I love reading is Jordan Mechner, who wrote 'Prince of Persia.' He put all his journals while he was writing 'Prince of Persia' online.

You don't really want to talk about 'Duke' in terms of, how many levels are there, how many guns does it have, how many monsters… It's got everything it needs in terms of that, but it's always been about the experience.

We did so much work developing the character of Kratos, why would we throw all that out? We're sort of treating the first seven games like chapter one of this character's life.

With 'Journey,' we created an emotional arc for two different scenarios. So, if you play alone, it's a good game. You have what we think is a complete emotional arc. You will feel, I guess, a sense of transformation in the single-player. Because it's a hero's journey.

Certain games, I think it's great that they give you a continuing experience.

In any case, 'Nier: Automata' is not a perfect game. But I am proud of everything in it.

I think you have to serve a lot of masters when you're doing a video game: you're not just telling a linear story or doing something that's all action.

I believe that 'Dark Souls III' must be developed as its own individual series.

Designing characters for 'Dragon Quest' is fun but difficult work.

'Dark Souls' is my life's work; everything I came up with for 'Dark Souls III' is based on my personal preferences.